Claire and Steve: This Is It
by Eric VanDerBoom
Summary: Claire finally meets with Steve after a 10 year separation. Love and Michael Jackson references abound.


Steve and Claire: This Is It

He felt almost as if he shouldn't be here, alive with blood and the Rebirth virus running through his veins. He didn't want to remember the particular incident that was responsible for his condition, but he just couldn't resist sometimes. Steve had encountered hell that day, running into the carcass-like undead or the whip-armed monster at every turn, eventually becoming a huge monster himself.

And yet, it was the unexpected turn that took him early in the incident that saved his life. To Steve it was hardly exaggeration to say that….love had saved him. And now he was about to find out if she felt the same way…after all these years.

He entered the building with confidence, yet at the same time, he felt almost like a ghost, coming back to the premises of his only lover. He could feel nostalgia as he entered, remembering all that they had been through. He didn't bother to check in with the front desk, seeing as there was no one there.

As he approached the stairs that would take him to the floors above, it felt like he was climbing Jacob's ladder into heaven. Then again, Claire was his heaven. Claire was his **life.**

_I never heard a single word about you…_

Claire had seen this strangely familiar person coming into the apartment building where she had taken residence. She didn't have a home to go to, but she didn't the worst bit surprised. After all, who would take in a survivor of not 1, not 2, but 3, T-Virus outbreaks for heaven's sake? This was the only place she could feel safe. Umbrella was gone, and Wesker was dead. Yet she still felt that someone was out to get her.

She was feeling too paranoid; all she wanted was some fresh air at this point. Grabbing her red, Valkyrie-decorated red vest from the bed, she closed the open door after she went out, barely noticing a poster for 'Michael Jackson's This Is It' facing her. She walked down the hall, deciding to take the stairs instead of the small, enclosed, and surely suffocating elevator. As Claire was ready to stalk down the stairs, feeling like she were about to slip into hell with every step, she saw him about to come up from the depths.

_Fallin' in love wasn't my plan…_

He could see her as clear as the day was not, right at the top of the stairs. At first she expressed a feeling of sadness and reverence on her face. This was quickly taken back in place of a turning away from him. Steve couldn't help but resent it: he had been brought back from the dead as himself, and yet Claire didn't seem to believe it.

"Don't worry", he said in his smooth, tenor voice. "I'm not contagious…or a hallucination, either." At this, she turned back to him, and with it came a feeling of intense affection that ran into his whole chest, filling him up like a hot air balloon that could take off at any moment. He kept his tiring gait up the stairs, feeling each step taking him closer to his light, who stood there with tears in her eyes, a smile upon her beautiful lips. Steve stopped a step below where Claire was standing, letting her take in his somewhat stronger build, his orange-blond hair, his yellow shirt, black short-sleeved jacket, and even the black pants with boots to match.

"But…I thought you were dead", she said right to his face. Steve let a ghost of a smile creep across his lower face, trying to joke, "Well, you'd think that I'd be part of the ground, but I'm walking on it instead.

At that, the smile that encased his face slowly wrapped itself on her face as well, both of them feeling the same thing that the other felt.

_I never thought that I would be your lover…_

She may have had the advantage in height at this point, but Steve had gotten the 1-up on her. Without a doubt, the love she had felt for this boy had been rekindled with his reawakening. She could feel an intense desire welling up inside of her. Yet it wasn't just physical, it was also emotional as well.

As if he could tell how she felt, Steve managed the last stair and encased her in his strong arms in the embrace that Claire had been waiting for ever since the incident that took her love away with Steve 10 years ago. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders in response, taking his warm bulk in her arms, finally believing that Steve Burnside, the young man who had haunted her dreams for a decade, had finally come back to her. "I've missed you, Steve…"

As the eternity of embrace seemed to end, she pushed lightly away from him, but only to look into his glassy, ocean-blue eyes. In those eyes was a slight tinkle, the young face radiating happiness, love…and a little mischievousness. "I've missed you, too…Claire…" His head inched toward hers ever so painfully slowly, and Claire just couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't wait any longer, as he forced him down with her left hand, his lips mushing against hers, her hand running through his mid-length orange-tinted hair, her other arm binding around his back. Claire snaked her body closer to Steve's, as she moved his hand down to Steve's back wrapping it as tight as her other arm around him. Their bodies now had virtually no space between them, their chest pulsing heartbeats across each other.

_Come on in, and please understand…_

They managed to stumble back to her room, their lips still tightly locked with each others'. Somehow, Steve was the one who ended up walking backwards, and the bed wasn't too far inside the door, and he tripped over it, his yelp of fright ripping the lip contact between the 2 apart. When they landed, Claire was looking down at him from a short distance above him, the light gray eyes boring into his, giving him the sense of tomorrow never knowing what'll happen.

"Claire…", Steve whispered from directly beneath her. The ghost of a smile suddenly took on more life, as she seemed to read his mind with the reply, "Me too to you, Steve." The smile that now encompassed Claire's face now wrapped his in the sunlight of their smiles, as he said anyway, "I love you…so much." Then the contact between them came back, as they started off soft, letting love take them away while they were still on her bed, the new words of a certain falsetto singer ringing through their minds…

_This is it…_


End file.
